What Makes a Total War?

World War I was a total war because it involved many nations, and was fought on multiple fronts where battles engulfed the European landscape and the population. Because of the scale of World War I, nations had to rally all of their resources and began to target civilian populations in order to successfully defeat enemy nations. The scale of the war and rallying of national resources led to a blurring of private and political spaces. Civilians were no longer indirect victims and passive sufferers, the war had made them active participants and targeted war aims. Many governments recognized the value and necessity of civilians as resources and military objectives. The success of the war was not determined just on the battlefield by the soldiers rather it was determined by the entire population and all participants, including civilians. The civilian population became a driving force in the success of the war effort as well as strategic military targets. It is this use of the civilian population as propaganda tools, contributors to the war effort, through support and industry, and as targeted victims that makes World War I a total war.

At the start of the war the civilians were used as propaganda tools. The British government’s war propaganda used Belgian civilian victims to justify retaliation against Germany and rally support from the general population. The Bryce Report, released in May 1915, produced in over 30 languages, published reports of German atrocities against the unarmed Belgian civilians. The report was widely published and the British public devoured reports of Germans “burning villages...and the wholesale slaughter of civilians.”1 Although the Bryce Report accounts for atrocities of the general civilian popu...

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...oods necessary to win the war. Finally, controlling civilians became increasingly important during the war. This need for control lead to civilians becoming direct military targets. Of course the civilian population at the home front and in the occupied areas sacrifice and suffer as an indirect result of any war. However, during World War I it became increasingly important for governments to directly target civilian populations through executions, deportations, forced labor and economic blockades. World War I was not just a soldiers war, governments increasingly recognized the importance of the civilian populations and their ability to effect the outcome of the war. The civilian population involvement in the war as propaganda tools, contributors, active participants at the home front, and targeted victims is all evidence that marks World War I as a total war.